High Flying

by Kaylin McFarren

  What was going on here?

  Draped across the black façade was a huge white banner with black letters. She couldn’t believe her eyes.

  Welcome to the ’97 Reno National Championship Air Races & Air Show!

  What? 1997? Was this some kind of joke? Skylar looked around, half expecting someone to jump out and yell, “Gotcha!”

  All the buildings around her looked the same but different. Everything was just a little bit off. She took another look around. The hangers were there, but where was the shed? She used that shed daily for tools and wash pails. The small maintenance building was there, however, the large newer side wasn’t. It was just a parking lot.

  Skylar scanned the whole airport and realized it wasn’t making any sense. This wasn’t right. None of it was right!

  Antique planes of every make and model were lined up in neat staggered rows. Pilots were checking engines, climbing in and out of cockpits, and studying the reader board for their positions. Red and white checkered canopies had replaced the black vendor tents that had been there this morning. The grandstands were still filled to capacity, yet none of the faces looked familiar. Not even the faces in the “Employee Section.” And there was still no sign of Jake and Ethan. Plus Jake’s biplane wasn’t there and his hanger was nowhere in sight.

  Was she losing her mind?

  A striking man with wavy brown hair and an athletic build strode up to her, wiping his hands on a rag. “So, you must be Skylar. It’s good to meet you. And all in one piece.” A bright smile stretched across his face.

  She returned his smile and realized that she recognized him. Her brain started filing through faces and names, searching for something to remind her who this man was. Then a picture came to mind. She knew a picture of this man. That was it! Skylar had seen his face in her grandfather’s album. Only, that album was filled with photos of her father.

  He looked exactly like a picture of her father. But that was impossible. Wasn’t it?

  Skylar looked at him a little closer. Same hair. Same sea blue eyes. If her father had a twin, this would be him. But wait…it couldn’t be. He didn’t have a twin and this man looked to be 25-years-old.

  The world came to a standstill. It was 1997! Her father would have been twenty-five in 1997. This was crazy, and so was being here, in this place—in the same year and place where her father had died.

  Skylar kept her clammy hands clenched at her sides and squeezed her eyes tight. This is all a dream…just a dream. Either that or she was dead. She must have crashed and died on impact. That was it! She was…dead. She opened her eyes again, but everything was the same. Still 1997.

  She broke out in a cold sweat. A tingling sensation began in her hands and feet and then quickly spread to her entire body.

  Her father stepped forward and reached out a hand. “Skylar? Are you all right?”

  She simply stared, mystified. “This…this isn’t real. It…it can’t be,” she stammered. “It’s…a dream. Just…a dream.” He was tilting off center before her eyes, blurring into fuzzy grayness, disappearing as the world went black.

  -1997-

  5

  Awakening

  “The voyage of discovery is not in looking for new landscapes, but in looking with new eyes.”

  — ANONYMOUS

  Skylar woke up to another day of intense heat radiating from the asphalt under Jake’s vintage Vagabond trailer. She’d had the strangest dreams and felt like she hadn’t slept all night. It made sense. She had quite a day yesterday with the airshow and all the nervousness that went with it. Not to mention the new stunts with Jake. Remembering pieces of her dream, she furrowed her brows. A storm? A collision? Spinning. That was a crazy dream. She rubbed her head with both hands and felt the sudden onset of a throbbing headache. The airport, but not the airport. Her dad? Wow, crazy.

  Skylar groaned and rolled over, pressing her face against the pillow. Something was different. The bed was softer and the pillow too. The air around her had changed as well. Was that cologne? She stretched out, inhaling an exotic, minty scent. Subtle but definitely masculine. When did Jake start using cologne?

  She heard the door sweep open and she managed to smile. “I had the weirdest dream. I hit the tail on this plane and thought I was going to crash. It was scary as hell. Then this guy talked me down over the radio…and this is where it really gets good. I landed back at the airshow, but everything was different. And the guy who talked me down…well, that was the weirdest part of all. You’ll never guess who he turned out to be.”

  “I can’t guess. Who was he?”

  Hearing a man’s voice, Skylar’s eyes flew open. This wasn’t her bed! And this wasn’t her room! She sat straight up, pulled the covers up to her neck, and stared wide-eyed at the stranger in the room. He was the guy from her dream! The one who talked her down! He looked just like her father, but it didn’t make sense. Her father had died years ago. Eight months before she was born.

  “Who…who are you?” she stammered. “What…what are you doing here?”

  The man backed up half a step and gave her a smile. He seemed to be waiting for her to remember something—waiting for her to catch up. His wavy hair was still wet from the shower he must have taken while she was sleeping. Thick dark lashes and a deep tan intensified the blue of his eyes, and his freshly shaven face had angles straight out of a GQ magazine.

  He had one hand in the pocket of his tan khakis and his white button up shirt was only half tucked in. His breast pocket held a soft pack of Kool Filter Kings, like he wasn’t in a hurry to wreck his lungs but would eventually get around to it.

  “You had quite the shock yesterday,” he said. “In case you forgot, I’m Dylan Haines.” He waved a hand around. “And this is my house.” He paused as if hoping recognition would set in. But when it didn’t, he continued. “I hope you don’t mind, but after you passed out, I brought you here. This was the closest place to the airfield, and you looked like you could use some rest. Under the circumstances and all.”

  Was this some kind of sick joke? Skylar squinted, trying to make sense of it all. She had heard of phantom war planes soaring over England, parallel universes in sci-fi stories, and far-fetched Hollywood movies. But this was reality – her reality, and nothing could prepare her for what she was seeing.

  “Miss? Are you okay?” the man asked. “Do you want me to call someone?”

  As she stared at him, fragments began slowly fitting together, like a scrambled jigsaw puzzle. There was a storm then lightning and the second plane, coming straight at her. Sending her into a tailspin and this upside-down place.

  “Oh! Of course,” she said, looking around. “I get it. This is the waiting room. Right?”

  “Umm…I’m not exactly sure what you mean.”

  “You know. Before you move on.”

  “Move on?”

  “Yeah. To meet the big guy.”

  Dylan gave a short laugh and rubbed the back of his neck. “I’ll get some ice for that bump on the back of your head. You landed pretty hard. You might have a mild concussion or something.”

  Something was right. Skylar rubbed her sore skull, grateful he hadn’t made fun of her far-fetched assumption. “Maybe a glass of water too?” she asked, halting him in his tracks.

  “How ‘bout something to eat? A grilled PBB? I was just about to make one for myself and—”

  “Sounds great.” There was no reason for him to elaborate. Her grandfather had introduced her to the tasty mash-up when she moved in with him thirteen years ago. She had refused to eat a bite after her mother’s funeral, but after some cajoling and persistent prodding, he had convinced her to try it. Before long, the melted peanut butter and warm banana snack became one of her favorites.

  “Great. I’ll be right back.”

  When he left the room, Skylar jumped up to look out the window. She felt a sudden rush of wooziness, reminding her of the lump on her head. Bracing her hand on the window frame, she took a good look outside and s
potted a gold ‘95 Cabriolet parked in the driveway next door with a Nevada license plate. Well, at least she was still in Nevada and hadn’t forgot her cars.

  Skylar pulled out the small stack of bills she had stashed in her back pocket. Forty-eight dollars in all. More than enough money to hire an Uber driver and determine her true whereabouts. After verifying her theory, she would need to find a safe holdup before deciding what to do next.

  Without waiting for the doppelganger to return, she slipped on her coat and out the back door. When she pressed the black call button on her phone, nothing happened. Her battery was dead, not that it would work here anyway. But good fortune smiled on her by delivering a taxi directly across the street. The passenger got out and Skylar slid in, while keeping a watchful eye on the front door of Dylan’s house.

  “Take me to the Bales’ Trailer Park at the Reno-Stead airport,” she told the driver. “And make it fast.”

  The driver turned around in his seat to get a look at her. “Bales’ Trailer Park? Where’s that? Never heard of the place. Do you have an exact address?”

  What was she supposed to do now? The crack in her universe was getting wider by the second. “Can you take me to 8290 Orville Street instead?” she asked, not knowing where else to go.

  “Sure, no problem,” the driver said. “That’s a real nice neighborhood.”

  Well, at least one thing remained the same. The location of her grandfather’s house. But what about him? Would he be a doppelganger too?

  As the car turned a corner, Skylar eased back in her seat. “So I guess Uber makes it hard for you to earn a living.”

  The driver watched her in his rearview mirror. “Who’s Uber? Never heard of him.”

  Geez. She never considered the possibility of the car company not existing. At least not in this place.

  The driver’s forehead furrowed. “Is there something I should know?”

  “Oh. Never mind.” What a ditz! If she had any hope of reaching her destination, she needed to keep her mouth shut and her eyes open.

  For the next ten minutes, parking lots, cocktail lounges, demolished buildings and construction sites passed by in a blur. When the yellow cab turned onto her grandfather’s street and began to slow down, she noticed that something looked wrong. Skylar couldn’t put her finger on it, but the neighborhood was—different.

  She paid the driver and got out cautiously. It was still early, but there were a few lights on inside. Some of the neighbors in the upscale neighborhood were awake in their homes, walking past their upstairs windows and gathering in various rooms. But she didn’t recognize any of them—not a single one. And she didn’t relish the idea of trying to explain her appearance to strangers. Or the police, for that matter.

  Surprisingly, she slipped through the security gate with no problem and arrived at her grandfather’s front door. However, the electronic keypad was missing—the one he had installed after misplacing his key for the third time. She knocked, but no one answered. Not even the housekeeper. Frustrated, she dug into her pocket and pulled out her key chain. She never threw anything away and it was filled with keys of all shapes and sizes. She found an old one that fit into the door lock easily and tried turning it. But the key wouldn’t budge, which came as no surprise. But a flurry of panic soon followed when she discovered it was stuck tight and couldn’t be wiggled free. She banged her fist on the door knob and kicked the door hard, hoping to jar it loose. Then she tried the key again.

  “Let me in, you stupid piece of—”

  “Can I help you?”

  Skylar jolted and spun around. Her father’s look-a-like was standing casually on the walkway behind her, as if his miraculous appearance there was the most commonplace thing in the world.

  “Go away!” she snapped.

  The man held up his hands and took a step back. “Hey, I’m on your side, remember?”

  “Then why are you following me?” She glanced around him and saw a car in the driveway with the door open. Fortunately, no one in the neighborhood seemed to be watching.

  “I wasn’t planning on it, but now that I’m here, maybe I can help you.”

  Skylar tried to process what he was saying. “I don’t understand. How can you help me?”

  “First of all, I think you might have the wrong address. I know the man who lives here.”

  She eyed him suspiciously. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I happen to know the owner too.”

  “Really? So, then I guess you must be one of his regulars.” He jerked the key out of the lock and handed it to her.

  “Regulars?” she asked.

  “From his bed and breakfast. According to him, it pays the bills.” He motioned his head toward the sign in the yard, the one she had obviously overlooked. “Lately he’s been getting a lot of salesmen and a few stewardesses, but you’re the first pilot that I know of. His housekeeper usually lets everyone in, but she must have gone shopping or something.”

  Whatever it takes. “Yeah, right. Of course.”

  “He flew to Guadalajara this morning to visit friends. He’s terrible when it comes to notifying his guests. All the more reason for him to get out of this business.” The man reached into the front pocket of his jacket and pulled out a keyring. “If I’m correct, I believe it’s this one,” he said, holding out a single key. “Do you mind?”

  She stepped aside. After opening the front door, he stood back, allowing her entry. “I sure hope you didn’t come here to rob the place,” he called out, half-joking.

  Skylar glanced back at him with distain. “I’m not a thief. Although I’m not so sure about you.” Then she halted in her tracks and turned around. “Wait a minute. How did you get a key to this place?”

  He tilted his head and appeared to be sizing her up. “I used to live here.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “And exactly when was that?”

  “A few years back. But my father and I didn’t get along, so I moved out.”

  “Your father?”

  “Yeah. Jessop Haines.”

  Wow. This place was getting crazier by the second. There was a good chance her grandfather had a twin too.

  Dylan lifted the registration book from the entry table. “I’m guessing you have a room. It’s Skylar? Right?”

  “I sure hope so.”

  He stood by, watching her as she made her way up the stairs. When she reached the top landing, she headed left entering her grandfather’s bedroom. Surprisingly, everything looked relatively the same: black leather headboard, mahogany nightstands, King James bible, massive stone fireplace. Even the gold garish bathroom in the far corner appeared to be exactly as she remembered it.

  She stepped lightly on the hardwood floor, crossing the room while keeping a watchful eye. After opening the cabinet under the sink, she expected to see the collection of old coffee cans he’d kept there. On more than one occasion, she had witnessed him pulling out rolls of fifties—tax-free money that he hid inside them for safekeeping. But strangely enough, there were none to be found, making her wonder if they even existed in this place.

  With only thirty-one dollars to her name and postdated identification, what was she going to do now?

  Skylar opened the bedroom door to leave and came to face to face with Dylan, standing in the hallway. “Okay. I think I made a mistake by letting you in,” he said. “Time to go, Miss.” He reached for her arm, and she pulled away. She pushed past him and made a mad dash for her bedroom, slamming the door behind her. After jamming a chair under the door handle, she turned around, hoping to find something she could throw at him.

  The man knocked on the door and called out, “What are you doing in there?” But by then, she’d already realized something was off. Way off. Her pink satin quilt and white dresser had been replaced with a blue striped bedspread and dark wood furnishings. There were Top Gun and Independence Day movie posters on the walls. The shelves lining the room were covered with football trophies, Star Wars memorabilia, library books, board games
, and framed photos of strange people, including a younger version of the guy outside. The only familiar object was the Jolly Rogers F-4U Corsair model airplane resting on the antique walnut bureau—the same one her grandfather had presented her with, while trying to win her good graces.

  Skylar heard the phone in the hallway ring. Dylan’s clone answered it, his voice piercing the bedroom walls. “Hey, Pop. I just stopped by to check on the house. Yeah, I know. I was supposed to fly out tonight, but there’s been a slight change of plans. Yes, yes…I will. Oh, and Myra left your prescription on the kitchen table. She said to call Doctor Dailey on Monday.” There was a slight pause then the words, “Ditto, Pop.”

  Ditto? Did he actually say…ditto?

  Oddly, the five-letter word cinched it for Skylar. It was something her mother had said multiple times a day. Before leaving her with a neighbor. Before closing the door to her bedroom at night. Before her final hookup with a knife-wielding john. The simple, meaningless word was stolen from Ghost, her father’s favorite movie. Or so she’d been told. After he died, her mother adopted the word, turning it into an empty reply. And somehow, it always followed Skylar’s words, I’ll miss you, I need you, I love you—as if it took too much effort for her mother to say them herself.

  Skylar moved the chair away from the door and slowly opened it. Despite her confusion and disbelief, it was impossible to deny the truth any longer. She had traveled through a time warp, taking her twenty-one years into the past. Bringing her eye to eye with the last person she ever expected or wanted to see.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t think you’re staying here,” her father said. “You really need to go.”

  She let out a sardonic laugh. “Yeah…big surprise. All you ever cared about is yourself. So why change now?” She charged out of the room and gave him a hard shove, nearly toppling him over. Then she ran down two flights of stairs.